The wedding of William Hally and Margaret Gaffaney, 20 November 1900. This photo was taken in front of Belper House, the home of Margaret’s parents, Michael and Margaret, in Arowhenua, South Canterbury, NZ. (Larger version 1.4Mb)

I’ve been filing! I haven’t done much else, just placed documents, notes, booklets, etc into clear plastic pockets and filed them in the relevant folder. I still need to process a lot of it, but at least it’s filed away.

And it was interesting to come across a few things I’d completely forgotten about. Like a photocopy of an old photograph, with some names inscribed. I posted the photograph for a Wordless Wednesday post a while back, but didn’t know who most of the people were. On my trip to New Zealand in February, my father gave me the photocopy of it with the names, and I’d squirrelled it away rather than filing it properly.

And then I found this photo my father had copied for me – same family, same house (possibly an earlier date?)

Michael Gaffaney & family, "Belper", Arowhenua, South Canterbury, NZ

What I noticed about the photos, is that my great great grandfather Michael is being poured a drink (of what?) in both! Was it some kind of family tradition or long-running joke, or maybe just pure coincidence?

My great great grandparents, Michael Gaffaney and Margaret Brosnahan, married on December 26th, 1863 at the Catholic Chapel in Christchurch. Michael gave his age as 23, and occupation labourer. Margaret’s age was listed as “full”, and her occupation servant.2 According to Margaret’s obituary:

…the young couple having to visit Christchurch to get married. They travelled by coach, and the reason they had to go to Christchurch was that it was only twice a year a clergyman visited South Canterbury.

They lived at their farm “Belper” in Arowhenua, South Canterbury, named after Michael’s birthplace in Derbyshire, England. Michael and Margaret had fifteen children, with one being stillborn. They were:34